In May, Forsyth County home sales see rise

Bob StraderBob Strader is a local realtor with the NORTH Group of Keller Williams Realty. Visit his blogs liveincumming.com or liveinalpharetta.com or email him: info@thenorthgroup.com.

Comment

We witnessed a phenomenal housing market in 2013.

The number of home sales in Forsyth County jumped nearly 22 percent over the previous year for single-family detached.

And while the number of single-family attached (condos and townhomes) sales only rose 1.5 percent last year, it was mainly due to the near non-existent number of those properties being available.

So far this year, we seem to have a bit of a reversal, where sales of townhomes and condos are far higher and detached home sales have been a bit anemic for a spring market; that is until May.

May marks the first month since January that we have more homes sold this year than last year, with a year-over-year increase of 11.9 percent.

That’s slightly higher than the 11 percent we saw in January, but far lower than it should be for this time of year.

The jump in sales of attached homes seems incredible, but on average we only see about 27 attached properties sell each month in Forsyth County compared to 300-plus detached homes.

With sales numbers that low, percentages can tend to jump all over the place.

Still, there is less than three months of attached inventory available so the market is good if you’re selling a townhome or condo in Forsyth County.

While the number of sales for detached homes are far lower than they should be, the good news is average sales prices are still climbing year-over-year.

For May, the average sales price of all homes sold is up 10.5 percent over last year.

Attached home sellers will be happy to know you’re seeing sales prices up 17.5 percent on average.

I think we’ll see these price appreciations wane in the coming months, which is a good thing as we don’t want prices to rise so dramatically that it dampens demand even further than we have already seen this year.

Modest price appreciations and healthy inventory levels are good for both buyers and sellers.